


i think i might

by bluelines



Category: Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Hate Sex, Mutual Pining, Rivalry, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:37:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelines/pseuds/bluelines
Summary: It starts out as a competition. It ends up being a lot more than that.





	i think i might

She needs to either fuck someone or get fucked.

That’s what they tell her, anyway. They being Kacey, mostly, who swears it’s the only way not to feel like punching something for the rest of the night. The thing is, all Meghan can remember is the smug look on Apps’ face when she had Meghan pinned to the boards, while her linemates blasted right past them with the puck. She can’t stop being pissed about that long enough to focus on anything. 

She’s busy being surly when she spots Apps from across the room. It’s a gay bar, and it’s not like Meghan’s surprised to see her there, but it gives her an idea. She starts just by watching. Apps is leaning against the bar with a beer in her hand, scanning the room, so she doesn’t notice Meghan right away, but like anyone she notices eventually that she’s being looked at, and when she picks Meghan out her eyebrows go right up.

That in and of itself is satisfying.

Meghan brings her own drink to her lips and raises an eyebrow back. She’s never done this--never flirted with a girl like this-- but it’s different. She knows that. She’s been told that, she’s observed that. It’s cerebral, it’s a mind game, and it’s exactly what she needs. She wants Gillian to be thinking about undressing her. And she wants that to piss Gillian off. 

It becomes a kind of standoff, both of them waiting for one of them to make a move or look away, and Meghan knows she’ll never lower herself enough to walk to Gillian, so there has to be another way. Eventually it occurs to her, and she leans against the wall, stretching out her legs and crossing one ankle over the other. Gillian’s eyes fall to take that in and her shamelessness makes Meghan feel something, maybe jealousy. Here, an ocean away from Wisconsin and her future, is the only place Meghan could ever imagine looking at a girl that way. Gillian can do that wherever she wants, and, Meghan thinks, that’s another reason to hate her for tonight.

Apps, though, is the one to put her beer down and cross the room.

“You’re not very subtle,” she says once she arrives, crossing her arms. Meghan shrugs, tilting her head. Gillian’s still tall and broad-shouldered off the ice and out of gear. It’s almost a little intimidating, but there’s a challenge in the way Gillian’s taking up her space, so Meghan buries her uncertainty. 

“I wasn’t going for subtle,” Meghan tells her. There’s a little bite to it that makes her proud of herself before Gillian opens her mouth again.

“What were you going for?” Gillian asks, “Desperate?”

“Fuck you,” Meghan spits, and Gillian grins at her. 

“Alright,” she says, and Meghan could swear that she’s leering, “yours or mine?”

-

She ends up saying ‘yours’. 

Gillian doesn’t mind that. She likes the idea, actually, likes the idea of pressing Meghan down on her bed, maybe face-first so she can push Meghan’s shirt up and mark up her back. She wouldn’t have pegged _Meghan_ of all of them as the type, really, but she’s not going to question it, especially not right now when she has better things to do. They don’t talk. Gillian leads the way, but she doesn’t turn the lights on when they get to her room, she just locks the door and pushes Duggan against the dresser, expecting some kind of retaliation, but when she crowds into her space to kiss her there’s no fight at all, just Meghan’s soft, pliant mouth.

Gillian pushes her hips again and then there’s a hand in her hair, which is more what she was expecting, and Meghan kissing her back full force. She’s never done a post-game hate-hookup, but she’s heard about it, of course, and she knows how it’s supposed to go. With the idea still in the back of her mind she steers them toward the bed and Meghan topples onto it, barely getting a breath back in before Gillian’s mouth is on her neck. It’s a couple of seconds before Gillian realizes that, despite Meghan’s hands on her hips, she’s not getting anything back.

Meghan isn’t participating at all. When Gillian sits up to look at her, there’s obvious confusion and nervousness on Meghan’s face, and Gillian rolls onto her back, barely stifling a groan.

She’s been played. Maybe not on purpose, but--Meghan’s all talk. And there’s nothing exciting about the prospect of holding Meghan’s wrists to the bed if Meghan’s not going to at least pretend to fight her for control. She’s a kid, Gillian remembers fuzzily, 4 years younger or something like that, and somehow the first thing out of Gillian’s mouth is, “Are you even legal to drink?”

“I’m twenty one,” Meghan replies quickly, but there’s more than just annoyance in her voice. Gillian sighs.

“Anyway,” Meghan continues, “the drinking age here is sixteen or something.”

“Not helping,” Gillian mumbles, “if you don’t want to do this just go.”

“I do,” Meghan insists, but she doesn’t move. Gillian throws an arm over her eyes. After a few seconds something starts to dawn on her, and it’s not an idea that she hates: Meghan might not be what Gillian was expecting, but Gillian can still make a night out of this, if she wants. There’s an obvious attraction. If she plays it to what Meghan’s comfortable with, she knows she can get Meghan off. It’s probably not overestimating her ability to think she could make that happen twice. And then tomorrow, when Meghan wakes up sore, that’s what she’ll remember. And the next time they line up on the ice, Meghan will have to remember _that_.

Gillian sits up. She rolls so that she’s hovering over Meghan again, and Meghan blinks, reaching for her hips once more. This time Gillian waits until Meghan kisses her, and it takes a moment but it does happen. Meghan kisses her, and the kiss deepens, and Meghan’s knee crooks without Gillian even having to reach for it. She does, after the fact, hiking Meghan’s leg up over her hip and rocking forward when Meghan drags her up by the belt loop.

Meghan’s hips move up against hers, and Gillian, overwhelmed, bites down on Meghan’s lower lip. Meghan freezes up, stiffening and turning her head away, and Gillian feels a rush of concern that takes her out of the moment even with her hips trapped between Meghan’s knees.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, redirecting her lips to Meghan’s jaw, and Meghan nods, sliding a hand into her hair.

-

Meghan is overcome with a moment of gratefulness when Gillian doesn’t make fun of her or push her, just turns her attentions elsewhere. Gratefulness and--she doesn’t hate Gillian. She can’t really, not like this, not with Gillian kissing her neck again as if she had never been redirected in the first place. Meghan pulls her shirt over her head, and Gillian starts to kiss the newly exposed skin, her hips still moving against Meghan’s, and, if Meghan’s being honest, an angle any better would have her over the edge already.

She’s glad for the wait, and not just because she couldn’t bear the embarrassment otherwise. Gillian’s shirt comes off, too, and Meghan’s hands go right to her shoulders. She hopes that’s not an obvious giveaway to the fact that she’s been looking, but, considering their situation, she supposes it doesn’t much matter anymore. Before long Gillian’s working at the button on her jeans, and Meghan reaches down to help unzip them and push them over her hips.

She starts kissing along Meghan’s chest again, over her bra, which is thin enough that she can feel the heat of Gillian’s mouth, but she doesn’t stop there this time. This time she drags her open mouth along the crest of Meghan’s hipbone, heading lower, and Meghan starts to panic.

“Not like that,” she croaks, reaching for Gillian’s face, and Gillian comes up immediately. She’s still in her jeans when she gets Meghan’s underwear down, tugging them off and tossing them aside like it’s nothing. Meghan reaches for her shoulders again, and then the back of her neck, and Gillian leans down over her, pressing Meghan’s legs apart again with both her hands, and that’s already a lot to take in before one hand comes up to brace herself against the mattress and the other--

Meghan moans.

She’s not proud of it, but it still happens. She _moans_ , digging her fingernails into the back of Gillian’s neck, and Gillian exhales on a smile. She starts with two fingers and she’s not gentle about it, but then it’s not like Meghan wanted her to be, and there’s some part of Meghan that isn’t really surprised by how quickly she gets accustomed to it, matching Gillian’s pace with her hips, scratching up Gillian’s back to keep herself grounded. It’s better than she thought. And she hadn’t imagined it as bad.

Gillian mouths along her shoulder, somehow finding a way after a while to make things better. It’s something about her thumb, something about the way she crooks her fingers--whatever it is, it sets Meghan off immediately, before she’s ready, before she expects it. She muffles whatever ungodly sound she’s about to make by biting down on Gillian’s shoulder, and Gillian groans, her hips stuttering forward too.

Meghan can feel herself trembling and wanting to stop, but it doesn’t stop, at least not for a while. She clings to Gillian with an arm around her shoulders and the other on her lower back, sucking in air by the lungful, and Gillian grins breathlessly against her collarbone, waiting until the tremors finally subside to sit up on her knees.

She pushes her hair out of her face. Meghan’s eyes go to Gillian’s hands, partially out of disbelief and partially just because. She already feels better, lighter, but once she starts thinking about getting her hands on Gillian’s hips, getting Gillian out of those jeans, the contentment starts to dissolve. She has to get something back. She can’t just let Gillian get her off like that and let her go. 

She sits up, reaching around behind Gillian’s back for the clasp of her bra, all her insecurities forgotten for now. As soon as Gillian’s bra is gone Meghan loses track of the fact that they hate each other, or at the very least they’re supposed to _pretend_ to. She’s busy staring when Gillian reaches for one of her hands and places it like she wants, but the guidance makes Meghan pissy, so she takes her hand back and replaces it with her mouth. She works up a mark right in the middle of Gillian’s chest, right over her sternum, and Gillian pushes her back onto her back before she gets very far. When Gillian twists for a second Meghan can see where she’s left Gillian’s lower back scratched up beyond recognition, and it makes her smile smugly, even sprawled out on her back on Gillian’s bed.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, and Gillian shrugs, touching it with one of her hands.

“A little,” she admits, trying too hard for ‘stoic’. Meghan smirks, motioning for Gillian to turn around so she can see, but a darkness flickers across Gillian’s face and instead Meghan finds herself being tossed onto her stomach. She barely has time to get her elbows under her before Gillian is pressed down against her, breath hot on her ear.

“You’re so fucking full of yourself,” she hisses, and Meghan laughs.

“Says _you_.”

Gillian scrapes her teeth across Meghan’s shoulder, pressing her hips against Meghan’s ass, and Meghan grabs at the bedspread, wishing she had managed to get Gillian’s jeans off. Still, this works for her, more than she expected it to. She likes not being able to see Gillian. Gillian, her shoulders and her arms and her absurdly long legs, is beyond distracting. This way, Meghan thinks, at least she doesn’t have to think.

-

Gillian much prefers this to seeing Meghan’s smug face for another second. This is what she had in mind when she approached Meghan at the bar, she thinks, leaning back on her heels again. That’s a mistake. There’s still too much to see like this, too much to admire, it kills her. She doesn’t want to admire Meghan. She doesn’t want the next time she lines up against Meghan to remind her of the perfect hourglass curve of Meghan’s body. She wants to remember _winning_.

She holds Meghan’s hips in her hands as tightly as she dares, not tightly enough to hurt her but maybe tightly enough to bruise a little bit. She leans back down and works up a mark on the back of Meghan’s left shoulder, persisting until Meghan is gasping little sounds into the mattress and she can taste Meghan’s skin under whatever her soap or bodywash has left behind. She does it again, picking out another spot along Meghan’s spine, and again, until Meghan lifts her head and hisses, “Come _on_ ,” like she thinks Gillian is fucking around for any other reason than that she knows she can.

So Gillian stops fucking around and slides her hand back between Meghan’s legs. She grins against Meghan’s shoulder when Meghan’s hips jerk forward, but she’s not even really doing anything yet, just stroking, just teasing. Meghan’s still sensitive enough from the first time that she’s anything but quiet when Gillian stops teasing, muffling everything in the closest pillow, but Gillian can hear her and Gillian can feel her pressing back into it, wanting more. All it took was a warm-up to get them here, Gillian thinks, exhaling against Meghan’s neck. So as it turns out, Meghan’s not all talk. At least not in terms of what she wants.

Gillian’s surprised how long it takes, given how easily things had gone the first time, but Meghan is resilient, and Gillian could swear she’s holding out as long as possible on purpose. By the time Meghan’s hips stutter to a halt again, her breath held and then released on a groan even the pillow can’t quite swallow, Gillian’s wrist and forearm are aching. It’s worth it, though. It’s worth it when she sits up and gets to see Meghan sprawled out on her stomach, spent and sweaty and exhausted and red where Gillian’s mouth was. This is winning. And the best part is that in a way, Meghan gets to win, too.

Gillian’s surprised at that thought just long enough to be thankful when her phone buzzes on the nightstand where she left it. She reaches for it, and when she looks up from it Meghan is watching her, stretching out her legs.

“It’s my roommate,” Gillian mumbles, thumbing the text notification away, “texting to ask me where the fuck I am.”

Meghan grins. 

“I think that means she’s coming back,” Gillian continues, and Meghan’s grin falters, but only for a second. She sits up on her heels, holding out her hand, and Gillian surprises herself _again_ by actually handing Meghan her bra and underwear before she gets off the bed. Apparently that’s all she’ll be getting off tonight.

“Sucks,” Meghan says, tugging her t-shirt back over her head, “I was ready to return the favor.”

“You wouldn’t have the guts,” Gillian postures, blatantly watching Meghan shimmy back into her jeans.

“We’ll see,” Meghan replies, and to Gillian it sounds like a promise.

-

Kacey is already back at the room when Meghan gets there. The bathroom door is closed with the light on, so Meghan goes about getting ready for bed, pulling out her sleep clothes and her toiletry bag. Her legs still feel at least partially like Jello when she tugs her shirt over her head. She’s tying her hair up when the bathroom door opens, spilling light into the room, and behind her Kacey all but gasps.

“Whoever she is,” she says after a second, “if she hurt you, I will kill her.”

“I asked for it,” Meghan replies, but she’s grinning to herself trying to imagine Kacey attempting to take on Gillian--on or off the ice.

“Jesus Christ,” Kacey continues, “who--I didn’t think you’d actually _do_ it, Megs.”

“That’s stupid,” Meghan says, slipping into a pair of shorts, “you know me better than that.”

“Okay,” Kacey allows, “but I have to know who.”

Meghan avoids answering for a minute, tugging her sleep shirt on and turning down the covers on her bed. When she looks up, Kacey is still waiting for an answer, arms crossed, so Meghan shrugs, brushing past her into the bathroom.

“Gillian Apps.”

Kacey follows, standing in the doorway with her mouth agape as Meghan splashes water on her face. She can still feel the sting of Gillian’s teeth against her shoulder and her back, and she catches herself grinning smugly in the mirror when she reaches for her toothbrush.

“Gillian _Apps_ ?” Kacey asks incredulously.

“I mean,” Meghan says, “nobody thought she was straight, right?”

“Meghan,” Kacey says, “I’ll kill her.”

“I asked for it,” Meghan reminds her, shoving the toothbrush into her mouth, and Kacey looks vaguely ill.

“I didn’t mean to go fuck a Canadian,” Kacey says, “I meant like--one of the nice Swedish girls.”

“I didn’t fuck her,” Meghan says after she spits, and Kacey presses her forehead into the doorjamb, closing her eyes.

“Holy shit,” Kacey says, “I can’t have this conversation.”

“Did you find a nice Swedish girl?” Meghan asks innocently, and she sees it in the mirror when Kacey lifts her head again.

“Finnish,” she croaks, and Meghan laughs.

-

For a while Meghan forgets about returning the favor.

For a while she forgets about Gillian entirely, which is how she wanted it. Vancouver is coming, and her focus is entirely on that, on the team, on her game, until they get there and Meghan sees her again.

It happens in the group stages. They won’t play Canada in group, which makes everyone antsy. Meghan catches sight of Gillian in the village on Valentine’s Day. Canada has a game tomorrow, which is why, Meghan assumes, it’s water in Gillian’s hand when they run into each other at the cafe.

She’s not sure how to react. Luckily for her, Gillian speaks first.

“Nice goals,” she says, and Meghan blanks completely for a moment.

“You watched?” she asks, and Gillian makes a face at her.

“We all always watch,” she says, “when we can, it’s strategy. Don’t feel special.”

“They were nice goals,” Meghan replies quickly, and Gillian raises an eyebrow.

“They were okay,” Gillian says, “but if you snow our goalie like that you’re going to get your ass kicked.”

“Oh yeah?” Meghan asks, leaning onto one hip. There’s a pair of other Canadians ordering food, but they haven’t noticed her yet, and from the back Meghan’s not sure who they are, so she doesn’t hold back. “By you?”

Gillian blinks. For a second it’s clear to Meghan that she’s caught Gillian off guard, and she grins. Gillian regains her composure and says, “You’d better hope not,” and Meghan’s grin turns into something else. The Canadians at the counter turn around and Meghan only recognizes one of them, a kid--maybe eighteen--whose name she can’t remember.

“It’s the Olympics,” she says finally, “you can’t kick my ass.”

“Not on the ice,” Gillian agrees, and when her teammates rejoin her she leaves with them without another word.

-

Two days later they end up in the elevator together.

It’s not a surprise, really. They’re not alone in the elevator; there’s a pair of American speedskaters with them, but Meghan doesn’t know them and Gillian certainly doesn’t so the ride up is stiff with inches of space between them. Meghan remembers being face down on Gillian’s bed entirely because she’s trying not to, and she flushes, hoping her face hasn’t betrayed her. 

Gillian gets out with her.

“This is an American floor,” Meghan says, hesitating outside the elevator.

“Maybe I’m here to see an American,” Gillian says, and immediately Meghan is running through a list, trying to figure out how that could be.

“I would have called to make an appointment,” Gillian continues when Meghan doesn’t answer her, “but I don’t have your number.”

“Let me text my roommate,” Meghan mumbles, but her hands aren’t working the way she wants them to when she gets her phone out. Gillian waits, and Kacey texts Meghan back but Meghan doesn’t read it enough to know anything other than that she has the room for a while.

“Is Canada even in this building?” Meghan asks, Gillian on her heels.

“That’s classified,” Gillian replies, and she sounds like such a nerd so suddenly that Meghan thinks about roasting her for it. She doesn’t, because she doesn’t want Gillian to up and leave now, but she files it away for later.

In the room they stand a few feet apart until Gillian speaks. She’s wearing a button-down that’s too small for her, too short and too snug in the arms, the sleeves rolled up halfway but messily like she hadn’t bothered to look at herself in a mirror before she left practice. Meghan wants to ask if she knows the rooms have ironing boards.

“You said you were ready to return the favor,” Gillian says.

“And you said I didn’t have the guts,” Meghan reminds her. Gillian smirks at her, crossing her arms.

“Do you?”

Before she can let herself think about it Meghan crosses the space between them, pulling Gillian’s hips into hers by the belt buckle and using her other hand on Gillian’s collar to drag her down into a kiss. Gillian kisses her back immediately, pulling Meghan’s hips against hers again with both hands, and Meghan pulls the belt through its buckle as the kiss continues. Gillian seems surprised by that, by her coordination, because the kiss breaks for a second before it continues full force again.

Meghan presses her hand low against Gillian’s stomach, but instead of unzipping her jeans she reaches up to work at the buttons of GIllian’s shirt. Gillian breaks the kiss as if she’s about to complain, but all she does is pull Meghan’s v-neck down over one shoulder--probably stretching the neck-- and lean down to mark up Meghan’s shoulder. Meghan’s hands stutter at the halfway point, but she pushes through it, through the way her knees start to give when Gillian’s teeth scrape over her skin. This isn’t about her. This is about payback. That’s what Gillian _asked_ for.

But that’s too easy.

Meghan moans. It’s an exaggeration, but Gillian pulls back as if she doesn’t realize, taking a shaky breath that Meghan notices even though she’s sure she wasn’t supposed to. She parts the halves of Gillian’s shirt and pushes them over her shoulders, standing back to take that in--Gillian standing there in her jeans and bra with her belt undone and askew.

“That’s a good look for you,” Meghan says, noticing a bruise along Gillian’s collar that’s conspicuously puck-shaped.

“I didn’t come up here for you to do an art study,” Gillian chirps, but she doesn’t move, and for a moment she almost looks self-conscious. Meghan takes a few more seconds to appreciate the view before she gives in and goes to Gillian again, this time dragging her mouth across Gillian’s collarbones. When she reaches the bruise she bears down and Gillian yelps quietly, digging her fingers into Meghan’s hipbones, but Meghan doesn’t let up. The skin’s hot under her mouth. The bruise isn’t going to get any better.

Gillian pushes her by the hips, directing her towards a bed, but Meghan redirects her instantly.

“Kacey’s bed,” she explains when Gillian gives her a look.

“Bellamy,” Gillian realizes out loud, and then laughs. “Of course.”

Meghan shoves her back again until her knees hit the edge of her bed, and Gillian topples back, so gangly that Meghan has to laugh about it before she scrambles up to straddle Gillian’s hips. She pulls her shirt over her head and Gillian reaches up immediately, but Meghan catches her by the wrists and pins them down to the bed without letting her touch anything at all. Frustrated, Gillian exhales, and Meghan kisses her hard, keeping her grip on Gillian’s wrists. Gillian could fight her-- could probably win-- but she doesn’t, she just takes it, resisting just enough to prove she’s still there, putting all her energy into the kiss.

Meghan gets sidetracked by that kiss. Gillian’s a good kisser, maybe even a great kisser, and Meghan keeps coming up with ways to drive her crazy before Gillian’s legs move and remind her that there’s more happening here.

When she lets up on Gillian’s wrists, there are marks where her hands were, and she almost feels bad about it.

Almost--but Gillian is breathless, her lips swollen, looking up at Meghan through her eyelashes, and it occurs to Meghan there’s no reason to feel bad at all. She leans back, rocking her hips forward against Gillian’s and reaching up to touch herself over her bra just because she’s sure Gillian’s reaction will be gold, and it is--Gillian’s breath catches in her throat and she turns red, her hands immediately going to Meghan’s thighs though it’s clear there are other places she wants them.

“You’re a fucking tease,” Gillian mumbles, and Meghan laughs, brushing her hair away from her shoulder before she presses Gillian’s hands back against the bedspread again. This time when she kisses Gillian she presses as close as she can, maneuvering until she can get a leg between Gillian’s. Gillian pushes back against Meghan’s grip, but Meghan doesn’t give in, pulling away to kiss along Gillian’s neck. She avoids the bruise, but she presses her leg up against the inseam of Gillian’s jeans until Gillian gasps and rocks against it.

Gillian’s hands slide into Meghan’s back pockets, and Meghan reaches to unzip her jeans. It takes a few seconds of them scrambling for Gillian to push her jeans over her hips and kick them away, but then Meghan gets her hands on Gillian’s legs and it was worth the few seconds of awkwardness. She’s impatient now, too, but it’s nothing compared to Gillian, who’s huffing in annoyance every time Meghan so much as comes close to touching her where she wants. 

Instead of giving in Meghan leans back onto her heels, her hands on Gillian’s thighs, and takes in the scenery.

“A picture would last longer,” Gillian says through gritted teeth, and Meghan considers her, sprawled out mostly-naked on a hotel bed, blushing from her cheeks down across her chest.

“Don’t tempt me,” she says, and Gillian glowers.

Meghan slides her hand between Gillian’s legs and touches her over her underwear just to see the way her face changes from the glower to desperation. She pushes her hips up into Meghan’s hand, but Meghan doesn’t do much at first, just sits back on her heels and watches Gillian try to get what she needs from such minimal contact. When she’s satisfied with that--with watching the way Gillian’s stomach muscles clench when she moves her hips, watching her chew her lip-- Meghan tugs the underwear down, and Gillian breathes out a sigh of relief before Meghan even does anything, so she doesn’t right away. 

She kisses Gillian again, and when Gillian reaches for her hand to guide her Meghan swats it away, gripping Gillian’s hip instead.

“Come on,” Gillian mumbles against her lips. Meghan plays innocent, her lips skimming across Gillian’s jaw.

“What?” she asks, and Gillian’s hands tighten on her hips.

It takes a few more seconds for Gillian to break, a few more seconds and Meghan’s teeth against her earlobe, but GIllian does crack.

“Please,” she murmurs, and Meghan grins.

She almost asks, ‘please what’, but if she’s being honest she’s tired of waiting, too. She meets with no resistance, and the second her fingers make contact again Gillian’s breath catches in her chest, her thumbs pressing hard against Meghan’s hipbones like it’s going to keep her together. 

Meghan doesn’t want her to keep it together. She hooks an arm around Gillian’s, grabbing her shoulder to anchor herself, and uses the leverage to find exactly how and where Gillian is most sensitive, managing even with Gillian determined not to let her know. She has a terrible poker face like this, with Meghan’s hand between her legs, although she _does_ try. 

-

The part of Gillian that would like to retain some dignity is regretting the decision to follow Meghan into the elevator.

The rest of her is clawing at the bedspread, biting her own lips so hard she’s going to bruise them, and using all her willpower not to thrust her hips against Meghan’s hand. Meghan is good at this. Meghan is surprisingly good, considering the way she had frozen up before, and Gillian wasn’t prepared. She was expecting some well-meaning and flustered fumbling. She was expecting to get off, but maybe only eventually, not like _this_. Not with Meghan watching her face, twisting her hand to get the angle just right and smiling when Gillian realize she’s just moaned out loud. Loudly out loud. Loudly enough that if there are Americans in the rooms on either side of them, they have probably heard it.

She reaches blindly for Meghan again, and then, forcing herself to focus while Meghan’s hands are busy, she slides a hand between Meghan’s legs.

Meghan gasps, dropping her forehead against Gillian’s collarbone. Her hand falters for a moment, and her fingernails dig into Gillian’s shoulder, but she doesn’t stop or pull away. Gillian can feel it when Meghan’s face screws up in concentration, and then all she can try to do is keep her hand moving like Meghan’s, keep them both on the same wavelength, and even as her forearm starts to cramp she’s trembling, on the edge.

It might be the angle, but whatever it is she’s there first, and she comes so hard that she needs a hand in the bedspread and another grabbing a pillow so she can muffle the sound she makes. She does it partially because she knows Meghan wants to hear, and partially because _she_ doesn’t want to hear what it’s like when Meghan completely, utterly dismantles her.

“You’re sweating on my pillows,” Meghan says. Gillian doesn’t have the air in her lungs to answer in a full sentence, but she rolls her head back to look up at the ceiling.

“More than that,” she says, and Meghan pinches her thigh.

“You want me to get you off?” Gillian asks, opening her eyes, and Meghan pulls a face at her.

“Wow,” she says, “well when you put it like that it’s just irresistible. I think Kacey wants the shower, so…”

“Next time,” Gillian promises, reaching up to touch her bruise where it’s tender from the puck and Meghan’s teeth. Meghan watches her hand and smiles.

“I’ll pencil you in.”

-

The worst part of losing the game isn’t even the silver medal.

The worst part is later, when they get back to their room and Meghan notices for the first time how Kacey’s walking. The worst part is when Kacey starts to take her shirt off and can’t do it. She sits on the edge of the bed and cries, and Meghan is at her side in seconds, barely dry-eyed herself.

“I can’t lift my arm,” Kacey says.

“You need to get it looked at,” Meghan’s saying, but she’s remembering vividly the hit that Kacey took a few seconds to get up from, a hit that sent Kacey half sprawling into their bench, almost in her lap. It was Gillian. That’s what she remembers. 

“It’s not my arm,” Kacey says, “it’s my ribs,” but Meghan doesn’t say anything else. All she can do is help Kacey out of her shirt and stare at the bruise taking over her right side and get progressively angrier.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Kacey mumbles, touching it around the edges.

“Go see Matt,” Meghan says, “so he can decide if anything’s broken,” and Kacey closes her eyes, lying gingerly on her back.

“I just want to sleep for six months,” she admits. All that comes to mind for Meghan is that she wishes she felt the same. She wishes she felt like anything other than finding someone--something--to hit.

-

Kacey stays in. 

The rest of them go out, because they’re supposed to, and because there’s still plenty to celebrate. Meghan knows that’s true, even if she doesn’t feel it. She’s sure that she’ll feel it later, but in the moment she feels nothing except worry for Kacey and anger that has no outlet. She knows better than to get drunk angry. Not that she’s done it before, just that she knows, intrinsically, that it’s a bad idea. The Canadians are all drinking, of course, and hypothetically they’re all supposed to be friendly and sort of sharing a space, but the room is still split between silver and gold in almost every case.

“What did Matt say?” Erika asks, using a hand on the back of Meghan’s neck to pull herself up onto her toes and half-shout it into Meghan’s ear over the din. 

“Cracked ribs,” Meghan answers, “one or two.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Yes,” Meghan says, but she doesn’t say who, and Erika doesn’t ask her.

Eventually she realizes that she came out for Gillian. Part of her wants to believe she came out so that Gillian would have to look at her, because she knows that she looks good, even if she looks tired and upset, but she knows better. She’s here because she wants to look at Gillian, because she wants Gillian to know that she’s looking, because she wants Gillian to know that she’s _angry_.

It takes about twenty minutes for Gillian to catch her eye. When Gillian does notice her, Meghan is still glaring, now over the top of Erika’s head. Gillian hesitates, her arm slung around the blonde kid whose name Meghan will never forget now, but she doesn’t come over, and she doesn’t react except to look mildly confused for a second before she turns around.

The second time they make eye contact, Gillian is saying something into the kid’s ear that looks--it looks like she’s comforting someone who’s overwhelmed and a little lost, and Meghan hates her, hates that she can see the soft parts of her when she’s trying to think about Kacey’s broken ribs. They make eye contact, and then Meghan leaves the building.

Somehow she knows that Gillian’s going to follow her. It’s dark and quiet outside, quiet enough that she can hear it when Gillian comes up behind her in the alley.

“There are easier ways to get laid,” Gillian says, “than looking at someone like you want to kill them for half an hour.”

Meghan wheels around and punches Gillian before it really occurs to her to do it. She realizes about halfway through that it’s even happening, about at the point her fist actually connects with Gillian’s face, and it hurts but it’s also exactly what she needed to feel vindicated.

“That’s for Kacey,” she hisses. Gillian’s head is turned away from her, her hand up by her mouth; when she removes it Meghan can see there’s blood there. Blood that Gillian spits onto the ground before she turns her head again, wiping her lip with the back of her hand.

“Fuck you,” she says, and Meghan’s about to go off about how ridiculous it is for _her_ to say that when Gillian shoves her back into the wall and kisses her.

Meghan kisses back immediately, insistently, tangling her fingers in Gillian’s hair and pulling until Gillian gasps into her mouth. Anyone could see them here, like this, but Meghan doesn’t care about anything other than making Gillian hurt. At least until she can taste Gillian’s blood, and then she pulls away, back into the wall, dropping her hands to her sides.

“This is fucking stupid,” Meghan says. 

Gillian tongues her split lip and Meghan wants to punch her again, but she doesn’t. 

“Us,” Meghan clarifies, because Gillian’s not paying attention, “this is stupid.”

“Okay,” Gillian says, “I mean, it was never smart.”

“It was convenient,” Meghan says, and Gillian laughs at her, a sound that makes the back of her neck prickle.

“Are you dumping me?”

-

“We’re not dating,” Meghan deadpans, and Gillian fights the urge to touch her lip again.

“You can dump someone you’re fucking,” she mumbles, surprised at herself for being annoyed by it. Annoyed isn’t the right word. She’s not sure what is, just that she doesn’t like how she’s feeling about it. She hates more the way Meghan looks at her, tilting her head back against the wall like she’s seeing something that surprises her.

“I just punched you,” Meghan says.

“Barely,” Gillian replies, even though her lip is throbbing so badly her entire face hurts.

“You’d still want to after I punched you,” Meghan continues, and it’s not a question, but Gillian answers her anyway, shrugging.

“You’re good,” she says, and when she glances up from Meghan’s crewneck, Meghan looks about as smug as she expected.

“It’ll have to be yours,” she says, “since my roommate is nursing two broken ribs at the moment,” and Gillian’s already running through all the ways she can shut Meghan up.

“Mine, then,” Gillian says.

-

It’s already off. Meghan can tell the second she walks into the room that there’s more behind what they’re doing than there was before. It doesn’t surprise her, not after the game, not really, but it’s not fun anymore. She’s not there to have fun. She’s not sure why she’s there, until Gillian tries to reach for her, and then all Meghan’s anger comes back so suddenly that all she can do is shove Gillian back against the door by the shoulders.

Gillian comes off the door to reach for her again, and Meghan shoves her again, reaching up and tilting Gillian’s head away from her with one hand, baring down on Gillian’s neck teeth-first, holding Gillian’s wrist against the door with her other hand.

“Fuck off,” Gillian hisses, squirming under the pressure, but Meghan wants to leave a mark, and Gillian doesn’t really _not_ want her to or she would be fighting back harder. 

“I don’t want your sympathy,” Meghan mutters, following up the first mark with another.

“I don’t feel bad for you,” Gillian replies pushing her hand out of Meghan’s grasp and tugging her away with a hand in her hair. It hurts a little bit, but Meghan only vaguely registers that. She doesn’t have much time to before Gillian kisses her, split lip and all, and this time it’s all teeth to start with, both of them trying to prove something. Meghan won’t be outdone. She pushes Gillian’s hips back against the door and works a hand down the front of her jeans, surprised but also not surprised at the evidence that Gillian wants this.

Gillian tries to keep her composure, but Meghan’s too deft, too sure exactly where to touch, so Gillian ends up moving against her hand, pinned to her own door. Meghan almost asks what Gillian told her roommate and her teammates the last two times but she doesn’t want to ask because she doesn’t really want to know. It’s far more important to her to see Gillian like this, gasping and scrabbling against the door trying to get herself off on what little Meghan’s giving her. No matter what Gillian said or insinuated, Meghan knows better. Gillian wants her, like this and otherwise. 

“Can’t even make it to your bed,” Meghan chirps, “good thing this way there’s no whistle when you get there first.”

“You’ll get yours,” Gillian grits out, but it’s distracted. She reaches down between them to shove her jeans over her hips. Meghan doesn’t give her enough room to step out of them but Gillian doesn’t try, just tries to guide Meghan and ends up with her wrist held against the door and Meghan taking her sweet time. When she does give Gillian what she wants it’s only once she’s waited long enough to surprise her, so that Gillian’s head tips back against the door and her knees give and all that’s holding her there is the hand gripping the dresser nearest to her and the pressure of Meghan’s mouth against her shoulder.

“Jesus Christ,” Gillian gasps, and Meghan resolves not to be gentle about it. She wants Gillian to remember when she wakes up tomorrow. She wants Gillian to remember this before she remembers her gold medal. 

Meghan loses track of time after that. She loses track of everything until Gillian’s head snaps back against the door, her knees shaking, and then she loops an arm under Gillian’s to keep them upright, the both of them panting for breath. Meghan doesn’t quite realize until Gillian’s leaning down to pull her jeans back up that she’s about to cry.

It’s the gold medal. It swings forward when Gillian bends down, catching Meghan’s eye, and Meghan’s silver suddenly feels like an albatross around her neck. She feels like an idiot, trying to take out her frustration and her disappointment like this, as if any of this is going to help. The thought of crying in front of Gillian embarasses her, frustrates her, enough so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and when Gillian’s done zipping up her jeans she looks up to see Meghan swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

\--

Meghan Duggan is crying.

She’s standing in Gillian’s room _crying_. Gillian’s legs don’t exactly feel reliable when Meghan looks away, wiping her eyes again and holding her breath, but Gillian reaches for her anyway, tugging Meghan in by the shoulder on instinct and pulling her into a hug.

It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. 

At first Meghan stiffens. Gillian’s about to pull away when Meghan reciprocates, her arms loosely around Gillian’s waist, and exhales on a shudder that Gillian knows is a sob. She’s been here. Not here, exactly, but she can sympathize, and Meghan didn’t deserve this. Not that Gillian would have had it any other way, just that she wishes, maybe for a moment or two, that there could have been a way to win without making Meghan cry.

“I, uh,” Gillian starts, “lied, earlier, when I said I didn’t feel bad for you.”

Meghan shudders again and Gillian can feel Meghan’s hands fisting into her shirt at the waist.

“Sorry,” she adds, remembering that sympathy was what Meghan hadn’t wanted, “I just--it was a good game.”

“It was a shitty game,” Meghan replies suddenly, pulling away, “we barely put up a fight.”

She looks exhausted. The crying has brought out the blue in her eyes and the bags beneath them. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Gillian says, and Meghan shakes her head, wiping her eyes again.

“It’s not your job to say anything,” Meghan points out, “I just don’t want to go back up to Kacey like this. She feels enough like shit.”

“So,” Gillian says, “don’t go back up yet.”

Meghan considers it for a moment like she’s not sure she knows what Gillian means. Gillian can see when it occurs to her, and when Meghan moves in to kiss her again Gillian’s ready. It’s hesitant, neither of them sure what it means this time or how it ought to go, but Gillian wings it and the kiss ends up almost kind of tender.

It’s what Meghan needs, she tells herself. She’s just reciprocating.

Meghan’s hands are back at her waist, so Gillian’s end up on Meghan’s face. Her own face still hurts, her _lip_ still hurts, but she can’t find it in her to care. This is the first time Gillian’s kissed Meghan and let herself notice how soft Meghan is, how good she smells, all the things about girls that Gillian likes so much--they’re all true about Meghan, who is objectively beautiful, not that Gillian came up with that thought herself. It’s just a fact. 

Gillian steers Meghan towards her bed and everything’s going so slowly that Meghan actually sits on the edge of it. Their medals clash together for a moment when Gillian kneels between Meghan’s knees, but Meghan takes hers off along with her sweatshirt and her shirt. Gillian’s at the perfect height now to kiss along Meghan’s chest, sliding her hands from the satin cups of Meghan’s bra around to the clasp.

She doesn’t want to go slow enough for things to get weird, and she can tell that they’re toeing that line, so she pushes Meghan’s bra straps over her shoulders and bears down on the skin she’s uncovered. Leaving a mark would take too much time, but she lingers long enough to enjoy herself, long enough for Meghan to grasp her shoulders, making soft, halting sounds that Gillian wishes she would just let go.

“Don’t try so hard,” she murmurs, pulling away long enough to tug at Meghan’s leggings. For a moment she’s afraid that it came out like a chirp, and more afraid because she didn’t mean it to, because she’s not sure _what_ she meant. But Meghan only bites her lips, shimmying back so that she can lie on the bed. Gillian follows, shrugging her own medal off and hovering over her while Meghan tugs her leggings down, then sitting back on her heels so that she can help at the last second and take in the view. 

Kneeling there with her hands sliding along Meghan’s calves she can’t help but think about the difference between Meghan’s body like this and Meghan’s body on the ice. There’s something about knowing what she can do physically that makes all of this better. Meghan shifts, licking her lips, almost insecure, and Gillian leans down again to kiss her stomach.

This time Meghan doesn’t stop her or redirect her, but Gillian still checks before her lips hit the hem of Meghan’s underwear. She looks up and Meghan nods immediately, reaching down to thread her fingers in Gillian’s hair, and that’s all the permission that Gillian needs. 

She tugs the underwear down over Meghan’s hips and realizes she’s been holding her breath, When she tosses them away she exhales and Meghan shudders, crooking her knees; Gillian props them up over her shoulders and kisses Meghan’s inner thigh. As soon as she moves her mouth she realizes why Meghan stopped her the first time they were together--Meghan is so sensitive that she arches up off the bed immediately, audibly sucking in a breath.

-

Meghan tries not to be surprised at how good Gillian is at keeping her on the edge. She’s not particularly surprised at how quickly she gets there, but Gillian won’t let her go, pulling back just enough every time that Meghan’s hips start to move. The first time Meghan thinks it’s _because_ her hips are moving, that it bothers Gillian somehow, but the second time she realizes that Gillian’s just trying to prolong things, and a flicker of frustration comes back. 

She groans, pressing her heels into Gillian’s back, using the hands in Gillian’s hair to give her some leverage so she can push her hips up again. This time Gillian doesn’t resist, and Meghan’s grip on her hair makes her groan, too. That’s all it takes to set Meghan off, and at first she surprises herself with how loud she is--before she shoves the heel of her hand into her mouth.

Gillian doesn’t pull away until Meghan has stopped twitching. When she does she looks up and Meghan remembers punching her. It makes her want to laugh, but she doesn’t, just props herself up weakly on her elbows. Gillian blinks at her like she’s not sure what to say, her eyes flickering back over Meghan’s body before she sits up properly. When she does finally speak, it’s not what Meghan’s expecting.

“I’m going to order a burger,” she says, “if you want one.”

-

Meghan stays. She’s not sure why except that she can’t feel her legs and she is, actually, really hungry. She puts her clothes back on while Gillian goes to get ice for her lip, and then they sit there on the bed just sort of looking at each other, realizing simultaneously that they have no idea what to do or what to say. 

Gillian takes the ice away from her lip and clears her throat.

“So,” she says, “you’re in school, probably, right?”

“Wisconsin,” Meghan says. “I’ll graduate next year.”

Gillian grimaces, putting the ice back to her lip and looking away. Meghan picks at the hem of her shirt for a few seconds, trying to decide what to say.

“Where did you go?” she asks, and Gillian answers her around the ice.

“Dartmouth,” she mumbles, “psych major.”

“ECAC,” Meghan says, “I wouldn’t have played you.”

“No,” Gillian says, “I guess not.”

She takes the bag away from her lip again, and this time it’s stopped bleeding. It’s still swollen, and Meghan wonders what Gillian will tell her roommate and her teammates tomorrow. Or, she thinks, checking the alarm clock on the dresser, later in the day.

“Is she okay?” Gillian asks suddenly, and Meghan turns back to her, lost for a second until she remembers why she punched Gillian in the first place. Gillian looks genuinely guilty and Meghan isn’t sure how to feel about it.

“Bellamy,” Gillian continues, “is she okay? I didn’t mean to--actually hurt her.”

“She’ll be fine,” Meghan says, “just some cracked ribs, she’ll survive. She’s upset more than anything.”

“You better tell her you punched me, then,” Gillian jokes, “she’ll love that.”

“What are you going to tell _your_ teammates?” Meghan asks, grinning, and Gillian’s expression tells her it’s not something she’d thought about yet.

“I--” she breaks off after a second, shrugging, “they don’t know we’ve been--that we’ve--you know. So, I don’t know. I’ll say I was mugged or fell or something.”

“You didn’t tell anyone?” Meghan asks, incredulously. She can’t wrap her mind around that. Somehow Gillian seemed to her like the type to brag. At least, the way they’d been with each other was the kind of thing you’re supposed to tell people about, if not in minute detail then at least enough so that people knew what it was, a rivalry hatefuck, which _any_ of their teammates would be able to understand, gay or not. 

Gillian shrugs again, this time a little more aggressively.

“You did?” She asks, and Meghan makes a face.

“Obviously,” she says, “If you think I didn’t tell half my teammates that I got Canada’s big bad enforcer to beg me to--”

“I didn’t beg,” Gillian interrupts, turning pink, and Meghan laughs, which isn’t something she thought she’d be able to do again for months when the whistle blew hours earlier.

“You did a little,” Meghan says, and Gillian is about to answer her when their food comes.

-

Sitting crosslegged on her bed eating a burger with Meghan is not how Gillian thought her night would end up. Some part of her had assumed Meghan was a picky eater, the kind of person to pull out the pickles and eat in polite little bites--she’s not sure why, because ‘polite’ isn’t necessarily a word she associates with Meghan, anyway-- but she’s dead wrong, Meghan goes to town on the burger like she hasn’t eaten in years, and Gillian doesn’t feel at all weird about doing the same.

Except that it feels a little bit like a date. Or, not a date, exactly, but something you’d do with a girl you wanted to date, or a girl you were dating. 

They don’t talk. Gillian’s not sure what there is to say anyway, but she likes that they don’t feel like they have to talk, either, likes that it’s almost comfortable. That’s what she’s thinking, picking off the last of her fries, when the door to her room busts open and Agosta walks right in, tipsy and giggling at her phone.

When she looks up all three of them freeze like it’s some kind of bad comedy.

Meghan swallows her mouthful, grabs her keys and phone and wallet off the floor where Gillian kicked them at some point earlier, and bolts without saying a word or making a second of eye contact. She has to shove by Agosta to get out the door, who just stands there, watching where Meghan disappeared, and then looks back at Gillian, who is still frozen mid-chew.

“Appsy,” Meghan-- _her_ Meghan, her roommate-- says, “tell me I made that up.”

“I was hungry,” Gillian says around her burger.

“So you ate an American,” Agosta says, and Gillian glares at her, swallowing and doing her best to keep from blushing.

“Continuing tradition, I guess,” she finishes, apparently done with talking about it, “we’re going bar hopping, and since she’s gone you’re coming, too.”

-

“When I walked into my room,” Agosta announces to the team, dragging Gillian to the bar, “guess who was on Appsy’s bed?”

“Me,” Gillian interrupts, “I fell asleep, leave me alone, I played like an hour.”

“Meghan Duggan,” Agosta crows, and nobody’s paying any attention to what Gillian said.

“Duggan!” Cassie laughs, “you sly bitch, you would.”

“She’s cute,” Tessa says, and for a second they all turn to look at her. “For an American,” she offers, “and an asshole.”

“Must be easier to get her on her back in a bed than on the ice,” Charlie says, and Gillian flushes, immediately thinking of Meghan sprawled out, smirking, on her bed.

“I need at least three shots before this conversation continues,” she croaks, and Charlie laughs, motioning the bartender over.

“Deal,” she says, “I want all the details.”

-

The next time they see each other is in November.

Meghan hasn’t had much action since the spring--too busy catching up on school, and hooking up at school always feels risky to her, anyway--so she’s antsy when they get to Newfoundland, wondering if Gillian’s even going to want to see her again. They haven’t talked about it. There would have been no way for them to--they never exchanged numbers. 

She’s antsy until they all show up at the same bar, as the teams generally do, or seem to do, and Gillian sees her from the bar and the corner of her mouth turns up. It’s not a smile but it’s also not a smirk, and at first Meghan’s not sure what to make of it, until Gillian taps her wrist and mouths ‘ten minutes’ and Meghan’s stomach drops.

Ten minutes later she’s standing outside on the bar’s patio with all of her teammates _inside_ and nursing a beer while she tries to decide what to say. Gillian shows up eventually, takes one look at the label on Meghan’s beer and fake gags.

“I changed my mind,” she says, “I don’t want to even imagine what your mouth tastes like right now.”

“Your loss,” Meghan says, and Gillian laughs. 

“So are we doing this?” Meghan asks, and Gillian seems to really think about it, pursing her lips.

“Honestly,” she says, “we’re up at six for strategy tomorrow.”

“So,” Meghan says sourly, “you made me come out here so that you could tell me you’re  
going to fuck me? Explain to me how that works.”

She realizes then that her cursing has an actual, visible effect on Gillian, who turns a little pink around the collar, and that at least is some kind of consolation even if she’s annoyed at Gillian holding out on her. 

“I was trying to plan ahead,” she mumbles. “If we’re both still here for the final--”

“We will be,” Meghan promises, and Gillian rolls right on without acknowledging it.

“--then I’ll see you the night before, if you want.”

“Maybe I wanted it to be tonight,” Meghan says, and Gillian looks up from her beer, puzzled. Meghan realizes that she sounds desperate and put out and continues, “What makes you think I’m just gonna play by your rules and be there when _you_ decide it’s what you want?”

“Good luck finding someone else who will deal with your attitude,” Gillian replies, making a face, and Meghan bristles for a second before she sees an opportunity to make Gillian blush again.

“Why would I bother,” she says, “when I can get myself off just fine? Are we done here?”

Gillian blinks at her, her mouth actually falling open for a second before she snaps it closed.

“Listen,” she says, “if you want to do this, that’s the day I’m doing it. I’m here to play hockey. And if you want to do it you can find me yourself.”

She turns on her heel and leaves and Meghan can’t decide whether she wants to follow her and hit her, or stand there and laugh at her. She does something in between and tips her beer back, rolling her eyes inwardly. 

“I’m here to play hockey,” she mimics, and then goes back inside to sulk.

-

It takes Meghan almost no time to figure out where Gillian’s staying. All it takes is for her to get up the guts to go to the concierge and ask what room Gillian Apps is staying in. The concierge gives her a look--Meghan realizes they’re probably not supposed to tell her, but she looks like a player, so she gets the room number just fine.

When she knocks on Gillian’s door, she realizes that it never occurred to her Gillian’s roommate might be there.

It’s Irwin that opens the door. She blinks for a second, and then grins, and Meghan doesn’t even try to say she’s looking for Gillian. She doesn’t have to.

“Your fuckbuddy is here,” Irwin says over her shoulder, and Meghan wants to punch her about as much as she usually wants to on the ice.

“Get lost,” Gillian says, and for a second Meghan thinks it’s directed at her, until Irwin laughs and shoulders past her.

“Text me,” she calls to Gillian, “I don’t want to be scarred,” and Gillian ignores her in favor of letting Meghan in.

“Subtle,” she says to Meghan, who closes the door behind her. She leans against it and Gillian looks down at her.

“Not my fault you didn’t plan ahead,” Meghan chirps, and Gillian frowns.

“Well,” she says, “you didn’t sound particularly interested when you told me you could get yourself off without me, so I assumed you weren’t coming by.”

“I’ve been getting myself off without you for years,” Meghan reminds her, “I don’t need you.”

“So you’re here why, exactly?” Gillian asks.

Meghan grins. She thinks about answering and decides it’s more fun to show than to tell. She reaches up and drags Gillian down with a hand fisted into the front of her ugly Canada t-shirt. It’s a messy kiss, all teeth at first, their noses bumping, but eventually Gillian reaches down and gets her hands on Meghan’s waist and the kiss levels out. She doesn’t let it meander like they had after Vancouver, which she’s trying not to remember; she deepens the kiss and backs Gillian away from the door, and she’s surprised when she meets with no resistance at all.

She pulls away from the kiss and tugs her shirt over her head. While Gillian’s looking, she takes the opportunity to chirp her again.

“You’re here to play hockey,” Meghan says, “how’s that going?”

“Fuck off,” Gillian says, shedding her own shirt.

“They were handing out goals like candy against Finland,” she continues anyway, “fifteen, and, what, you didn’t want one?”

Gillian slides a hand into Meghan’s hair and tugs hard, putting her neck at an awkward angle so that she can bite down and suck at Meghan’s pulse point, entirely unapologetically. Meghan hates the way her knees go weak from the pressure, hates that Gillian thinks she has permission to make a visible, obvious mark, enough that she actually shoves Gillian away from her with both hands on Gillian’s shoulders.

Gillian stumbles back and Meghan follows, shoving her again until she falls back onto the bed behind her, and Meghan doesn’t care whether it’s hers or not.

Gillian doesn’t fight her. Meghan pins her to the bed by the wrists and Gillian just looks up at her, eyes dark, lips red, and _takes it_. It takes Meghan a moment to realize how much the dynamic is working for Gillian, but when it does she laughs, pressing Gillian’s wrists harder into the bed.

“I knew it,” she says, rocking her hips forward, and Gillian exhales, her hands flexing.

“Knew what,” she breathes, but it’s not really a question. Meghan treats it like it is.

“You’re all talk,” she says, even though she knows from experience that it isn’t true. “All this time you wanted to be topped. You’re not a goalscorer at all.”

“It’s not--” something flashes in Gillian’s eyes, and she jerks her hands out of Meghan’s grip, “it’s not fucking connected.”

She actually looks hurt. Meghan has to take a second to process it, leaning back onto her heels with her hands on her thighs. It makes her mad when she realizes that she’s mad at herself for opening her mouth, when she wishes that she’d known Gillian was actually feeling shitty about not scoring. It makes her mad until she remembers that they won fifteen to nothing, and then she’s over it, or at least she tells herself she is.

“Okay,” she says, and she hopes that it doesn’t sound confrontational. She means for it to be--not an apology, and certainly not soothing, but at least not the same tone of voice as before. She reaches for Gillian’s wrists again and presses them into the mattress so that she can lean in and kiss Gillian’s neck, and Gillian relaxes after a few seconds, sighing and shifting under Meghan’s weight.

“I’ll score tomorrow,” Gillian mumbles, and just for that Meghan sucks a livid bruise just below Gillian’s ear.

Gillian presses up against her grip and Meghan squeezes her wrists, rolling her hips again, and that’s when Gillian groans for her, or at least Meghan likes to think of it that way. Either way, Gillian groans, and Meghan sits up so that she can watch Gillian turn red while she rocks their hips together.

She knows, though, that the pressure is mostly working for her, and that’s not exactly the point, so she stops, even if she’d like to get off. The point is Gillian. At least for the moment. She reaches down and thumbs Gillian’s jeans open, tugging them down over her hips without unzipping them. Gillian struggles a bit to get them off, and Meghan almost wants to laugh at her--it’s funny to remember how lanky Gillian is--but she’s sure Gillian would take it badly, so she bites down on her smirk instead.

“Roll over,” Meghan says once Gillian’s tossed her jeans away, and Gillian blinks at her.

Meghan’s not entirely confident that she can flip Gillian herself. She’s afraid to try because failing will ruin it. She reaches up and pulls her hair back, and it’s not meant to do anything, but it jerks Gillian into action immediately. She’s blushing when she rolls over, and now she can’t see Meghan’s face so Meghan lets the smirk go and concentrates on Gillian instead.

She realizes then something she hadn’t realized the last two times they did this: Gillian has curves. It’s not a surprise, because Meghan knows that Gillian’s a woman, of course, but she wasn’t expecting to be caught so off guard by it, and she takes a moment just running her hands along Gillian’s back and hips, her thighs and over her undershorts. Gillian must interpret it as teasing because she shifts, clearing her throat, and Meghan has to grin to herself about it.

She slides her hand around Gillian’s stomach and tugs her up onto her knees. All it takes is the suggestion of pressure for Gillian to pop up onto her knees and elbows, and Meghan sits back on her heels, her hand resting on Gillian’s hip. After a second she slides her other hand between Gillian’s legs, and Gillian immediately presses back against her, sinking her head into her hands where they’re resting against the mattress, bracing herself on her forearms. This time the realization of how much Gillian wants this isn’t funny--this time Meghan swallows hard, realizing that her mouth is dry, and repositions herself so that she’s pressed up against Gillian’s back, her lips skimming across the back of Gillian’s neck.

“Fuck,” Gillian mumbles, and that’s all Meghan needs to hear to slide her hand under Gillian’s shorts.

It’s an awkward angle for her, her arm all the way around Gillian, and she’s shorter enough that all she can reach with her mouth is Gillian’s upper back, but Gillian doesn’t seem to care at all. Her hips move against Meghan’s hand, and Meghan reaches down with her free hand to hold Gillian in one place instead. She wants it to be _her_ that gets Gillian off, and she says so.

Gillian doesn’t respond. She keeps her hips still, though, as much as she can, and Meghan doesn’t try to take her time, partially because she has no self control. She wants to hear Gillian curse again. Gillian’s legs start to tremble, Meghan bites down on her shoulder, and that’s it--Gillian curses again, something Meghan doesn’t catch, and her hips rock against Meghan’s hand when she comes down, gasping into the bed.

Gillian rolls onto her back and Meghan gets up to slip out of her leggings and her underwear, unhooking her bra, and Gillian, still shaking a bit, gets the rest of her clothes off, too. Meghan clambers on top of her again, taking a second to breathe, straddling Gillian’s leg and leaning down to kiss her. It’s not slow, even though Gillian is still a bit out of breath; Meghan is hungry and Gillian is accommodating and before long it’s both of them gasping for air.

Meghan braces herself with her hands on Gillian’s shoulders and rolls her hips against Gillian’s thigh.

Gillian’s mouth falls open for a second, her eyes and hands both on Meghan’s hips, and then she looks up, taking Meghan in like she’s in awe. Meghan likes that look on Gillian, she decides. 

-

Gillian is fucked.

She knows the second Meghan gets herself off, her head tossed back and then dropped forward, her fingers digging into Gillian’s shoulders--she knows in that second when she can see Meghan smiling. Objectively she’s made the biggest mistake she’s ever made. Realistically, with Meghan’s hips filling her hands just right, she doesn’t care, but she knows that she will later. 

Meghan takes a deep breath and rolls off of Gillian, onto her back. The bed’s not really big enough for that, so they’re pressed together a bit, which Gillian doesn’t mind. She wonders if this is it, if Meghan’s going to leave, and realizes that she really doesn’t want that to happen about when Meghan clears her throat.

“You have any water?” She asks, and Gillian sits up. She reaches for the bottle on her night table and hands it over. Meghan takes one look at it, at the ‘CANADA’ written across it, and grimaces before she takes it. 

“If you tell anyone about this,” she says, “I will personally make sure you never get laid again.”

“Wow,” Gillian says, watching Meghan waterfall it like they haven’t just had sex for the third--fourth?--time, “that seems ambitious.”

“Try me,” Meghan says, and rolls back on top of her.

For a while Meghan just kisses her. It’s overwhelming anyway, with Meghan pressed up against her entirely, settled between her legs. Gillian’s not sure she’s ever been with someone like this, been with someone where she let herself just _be_ kissed, where she wasn’t in Meghan’s position, at least metaphorically. She’s never been with someone her height or taller than her, and anyone smaller has always expected her to initiate, which she doesn’t mind, but doesn’t always feel entirely comfortable. She’d never tell Meghan, but this, with Meghan taking the lead, doing whatever she wants, is entirely preferable to what they did the first time.

She thinks that Meghan is smart enough to know by now.

That’s what she’s thinking when Meghan breaks the kiss and slides back along the bed. Gillian looks down, startled to find Meghan suddenly looking up at her, and Meghan makes eye contact with her briefly before she goes back to ruining Gillian’s life. She teases first, which Gillian isn’t surprised by, until Meghan nips her inner thigh and she yelps. She reaches down and fists her hands into the sheets as if that’s going to help her keep it together.

She remembers Meghan chirping her for begging and tells herself firmly not to give Meghan that satisfaction. She almost cracks when Meghan exhales against her skin like she’s just going to wait until something is said, but instead she bites her lips and after a few seconds Meghan shakes her head, grinning, and decides she doesn’t want to wait anymore.

Gilian can hear herself moan and is already too far gone to be embarrassed by it. She tries to remember who’s on either side of her room, mostly to keep herself from making any more noise, and to distract herself, because Meghan’s--

Charlie and Caro on one side, the other--

“Jesus Christ,” Gillian groans, threading a hand into Meghan’s hair.

If she had let herself imagine what Meghan would be like going down on her, she wouldn’t have been surprised. Everything's a competition with Meghan. Meghan has to be the best at everything she does. This is not an exception to that rule. She’s relentless, pushing Gillian to the edge and then letting off the pressure when Gillian’s fingers tighten in her hair instinctively, both her hands on Gillian’s hips to keep her close. If Gillian moves her hips, Meghan lets off the pressure. If Gillian gives any indication of being close, Meghan takes her back to the start, and Gillian has just convinced herself that she’s too sensitive to actually get off when Meghan’s hand slides between her legs and takes her entirely by surprise. 

Meghan’s barely added a second point of pressure before Gillian snaps, and that’s really what it feels like, her entire upper body arching of the bed without her permission. She bites her lip so hard that she thinks she might split it again and almost, _almost_ comes out with Meghan’s name. It’s another “fuck” that comes out instead, which, she figures, is at least some part a victory.

Meghan still looks smug when she sits up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, and Gillian doesn’t have the energy to say anything. Instead she stares up at the ceiling and avoids looking at Meghan, who stretches until staring at the ceiling really just seems stupid.

“I guess,” Meghan says, taking her hair out of the tie and shaking it out with no regard for any kind of decency, no movement to put any of her clothes back on, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Only if you keep your head up,” Gillian says, and she’s a little proud of the fact that she can still manage to chirp Meghan when her entire body feels like it’s made of jello.

“Silver will look great next to that impressive hickey,” Meghan says, slipping back into her underwear, and Gillian reaches up to touch it, shaking her head.

-

It’s easy to hate Gillian again watching her skate around with gold around her neck.

The difference is that--for whatever reason--Meghan doesn’t have the urge to slam her against the nearest vertical surface and get her mouth on Gillian’s skin anymore. Something’s changed. She tells herself that she’s just exhausted, but even then she knows there’s more to it. She focuses on wallowing, or letting herself wallow the appropriate amount, on trying to be as supportive to her bummed out teammates as possible. Defeat like this right on the heels of an Olympic silver is hard to stomach.

Wanting to cry over Gillian smiling, surrounded by her teammates, is harder to stomach.

Their flight is so early the next morning that anyone going out is pulling an all-nighter, and Meghan wants to sleep more than she wants to suffer through a few hours of pretending to celebrate, knowing she won’t drink before she gets on a plane home anyway. Being sober and ferrying around her drunk friends while trying not to be visibly upset over something she really ought to have gotten over by now doesn’t sound like a viable plan for the night.

Gillian catches her in the lobby, on her way out. Meghan tries to ignore her, but Gillian catches her by the wrist, and Meghan’s first thought is that they would look unbearably dramatic if anyone actually noticed them. As far as she can tell, nobody does.

Gillian presses a piece of paper into her palm and murmurs something that sounds like “good game” before she disappears out into the street where a few of her teammates overtake her. Meghan clutches the paper in her clammy palm until she’s back in her room, and then, with the lights still out and her back to Erika’s bed even though Erika is halfway across town drinking her silver away, she unfolds it.

It’s Gillian’s number. Her handwriting is thin and loopy. That’s the detail that makes Meghan cry, for some reason--the words ‘call me in April’ written in the handwriting of someone who is suddenly very, very real to her.

-

Meghan calls her in April. 

Gillian isn’t sure why she’s surprised. It’s strange to hear Meghan’s voice over the phone, stranger still when she’s not sure what she wants to say. 

“What’s up?” she ends up asking, and then immediately drops her face into her hand.

“I don’t know,” Meghan says, “you told me to call you.”

“I did,” Gillian agrees. She either sounds like a stuck-up asshole or like she’s as awkward as she feels, and she’s not sure which option is worse.

“I was wondering if you wanted to get coffee,” Gillian manages, “sometime, when--I’ll be in Boston, playing, so--”

“I’m in Wisconsin,” Meghan says, and Gillian almost hangs up. She wishes she could make Meghan hang up on her.

“Ah,” Gillian says, “so when you’re back.”

“You won’t be playing when I’m back,” Meghan reminds her, and Gillian wonders if there’s a way for her to make this any worse.

“You could come up here,” she says, “if you wanted.”

“Seems like an awful lot of trouble to get laid,” Meghan replies casually, but Gillian can hear that she’s smiling, somehow. The ball is in Gillian’s court, and she hesitates even though giving Meghan her number was supposed to start this conversation. She had just thought the conversation would happen over coffee in Boston. Forgetting that Meghan is about to graduate from college is something she doesn’t want to think about.

“Maybe,” she says, picking at a thread on her sweater, “we could do something different.”

Meghan is the one to pause this time. Gillian realizes too late that it sounds like something it’s not, and she’s about to defend herself when Meghan finally speaks again, her smile turning her voice bright.

“Are you asking me out?”

Gillian cannot believe how serious this trouble is that she’s gotten herself into. Her heart is in her throat and she feels like she’s a teenager again, like she’s asking a girl out for the first time in her life. Only this is a girl that she knows likes her, at least a little bit, somehow.

“I’m trying,” she says, and Meghan laughs. It’s not a mean laugh. Gillian isn’t sure how she knows.

“Really?” Meghan asks, and Gillian closes her eyes, leaning her head back against the top of her couch.

“Stop sounding so surprised,” Gillian mumbles. When Meghan doesn’t answer right away, she tries something else. “I realized I didn’t actually know much about you.”

“I don’t know much about you either,” Meghan agrees, and Gillian relaxes, opening her eyes but not seeing anything other than Meghan in the lobby months back.

“It, um,” Meghan trails off for a few seconds and GIllian is nervous again immediately.

“If you’re seeing someone, we-- I don’t mean to assume anything,” she says, and Meghan laughs again.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” she says, “it just might be hard for me to get to Toronto.”

“You know where I play,” Gillian points out, and Meghan makes a dismissive noise.

It’s bizarre to be doing this, talking logistics with Meghan, imagining sitting down with her somewhere and talking about something that isn’t hockey or sex. It’s bizarre, but it’s something Gillian wants, and the relief of having that out in the open is a little bit overwhelming.

“I can come down,” Gillian offers, “once you're back. A friend of mine from college lives in Cambridge.”

“You're gonna come down to Boston,” Meghan says slowly, “to take me on a date.”

“To visit a friend,” Gillian corrects her, face burning, “but I can also take you to dinner.”

“It was coffee a minute ago,” Meghan points out, and Gillian is so antsy, getting up to pace while she's waiting for Meghan to stop chirping her and give her an answer. She wouldn't be surprised, exactly, if Meghan was flattered but not interested. It's kind of a stupid idea. The pressure of not knowing yet is what makes Gillian’s hands sweat. She doesn't answer, and Meghan is quiet for a second like she expects a chirp back. 

“Oh,” Meghan says, “I thought--I didn't--you're _serious_.”

“Yes,” Gillian says, unable to keep the exasperation out of her voice. 

“Oh my God,” Meghan says, “I'm sorry, I…” she trails off and Gillian prepares herself for the inevitable, which feels worse than she imagined, somehow. 

“I'll be back the second week of May,” Meghan says, “there's usually a national team camp in August, if I get called in, but otherwise I'll just be training and stuff.”

“You'll get called in,” Gillian says, but she realizes that's not the point. 

“Boston is nice in June,” Meghan counters, and Gillian grins. The complete 180 from when she thought Meghan was saying no has her giddy, and she's kind of glad that Meghan can't see her face. 

“Okay,” Gillian says, “so, June, then.”

“I promise I won't punch you,” Meghan jokes. 

“Romantic,” Gillian replies, and they laugh together, and it feels so natural that Gillian wishes she had said something before this, before Vancouver, even. She wouldn't have, and if she had it would have been a disaster, but it still feels like she's lost time. Convincing Meghan that she’s interested in more than just her body is going to be an uphill battle, but flying down to Boston is a good start. A good start or hopelessly stupid. She’s not sure.

-

“She’s coming here?” Kacey asks. There’s an edge to her voice, but it’s the kind of edge that Meghan knows is going to end in hysteria.

“June,” Meghan tells her, and Kacey, true to form, bursts into laughter.

“I can’t believe,” she wheezes, “you played her so hard that she’s flying down to Boston to get some.”

“It’s not like that,” Meghan blurts, surprising even herself. Kacey goes very quiet, and Meghan almost regrets opening her mouth. She had been surprised at how excited she was, but she had just wanted to tell someone, and Kacey was the first person who came to mind, the only one who knew what her and Gillian had been doing.

Now though, Meghan’s not sure that _she_ even knew what they were doing.

“Okay,” Kacey says, “so...what’s going on then? Because I thought you were just--”

“I know,” Meghan says, “I did too, but it’s--she asked me out. Like on a date.”

“Oh,” Kacey says, and then, after a moment, “well, how do you feel about it?”

Meghan considers it. She already knows the answer, but she thinks about it anyway, about how to say it, or whether she should. She thinks about the last time she saw Gillian--in a lobby, with a note being pressed into her hand like they were star-crossed lovers and not rivals who have been getting each other off for a year and a half, give or take. 

“Well,” Meghan says, “it’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Kacey exhales loudly in relief.

“God,” she says, “yes, okay. Yes. It’s completely ridiculous. It’s absurd.”

“I know,” Meghan says, “but I kind of want to see what happens.”

“That’s ridiculous too,” Kacey says, “for the record. I mean, Megs, I love you, but what do you think is gonna happen? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to fall in love and get married or something. It’s totally reasonable for you guys to keep doing whatever with your arrangement, but getting involved with feelings is gonna be messy.”

Meghan wants to say that she knows that. She wants to say that she’s already gotten messy, that she already has feelings. She keeps thinking about their room service burgers, about Gillian hugging her after the gold medal game, but she doesn’t really want to tell Kacey about that, at least not yet.

“I can handle messy,” she says eventually, and Kacey sighs.

-

Meghan texts her. Gillian’s not expecting it. It starts with a question about what she wants to eat, which is strange, a little bit, because it’s May and they won’t see each other for a month, but GIllian plays along. That’s where it starts. It turns into the occasional conversation, the two of them finding things to talk about, mostly banter that leaves Gillian grinning down at her phone. She gets chirped for it more than once, but she doesn’t say a word to anyone about it until the week before she leaves.

“I’m out of town,” she finds herself saying, when Jayna invites her for a family dinner, “sorry, rain check?”

“Where,” Jayna says, uncapping their second bottles of beer for the night, “are you even going?”

“Boston,” Gillian replies, because she knows better than to lie, and because she cooked up an excuse knowing that this would happen. “My friend Liz from Dartmouth lives in Cambridge.”

“Have you even spoken to her since you graduated?” Jayna asks, and Gillian takes a long drink of her beer before she even considers answering. Jayna will probably know if she lies.

“Of course,” she tries, but it’s not terribly convincing.

“You’re flying down there for her,” Jayna says, pointing with her bottle in her hand, “you’re flying to another country for an American girl who embarrasses us multiple times a year, and I’m disowning you.”

“It’s barely another country,” Gillian mumbles. She takes another drink and adds, “also, Kathleen is American, pot kettle.”

“Kathleen never made me look like I was playing U18 hockey,” Jayna points out. As if summoned, Kathleen appears at the sliding door to the balcony with her own beer. Jayna makes room for her on the loveseat, and Gillian straps herself in mentally, because she knows exactly what she’s in for. They try to be nice about it. They try to include her and they’re not trying to make her feel like a third wheel, but they love each other, and they’re very attracted to each other, and Gillian always sort of feels like she’s intruding. 

“Let me set you up,” Jayna suggests, but she’s already glazed over, because Kathleen has an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m good,” Gillian replies, and mentally counts the days until her flight south.

-

Meghan gets nervous the week before.

She hasn’t mentioned it to Kacey in weeks, but she’s antsy thinking about Gillian, and it’s not for the usual reasons. Kacey, of course, doesn’t know that. Meghan shifts on the couch, kicking her legs, which she can’t seem to get comfortable. Kacey pushes Meghan’s feet off of the couch.

“Jesus Christ,” Kacey says, “when does that tall glass of bagged milk come down here? You need to get laid.”

“It’s a date,” Meghan says, “it’s not like that this time.”

“Yeah?” Kacey asks, pushing Meghan’s feet off again when Meghan picks them back up onto the couch, “and you’re not gonna fuck her after even though she’s going through _customs_ to see you?”

Meghan blushes, which she never does when Kacey curses, but she’s thinking about it, about Gillian, and she can’t help herself. Kacey’s jaw drops, and she squeezes her eyes shut, theatrically dropping her head into her hands.

“Oh my God,” Kacey says, “how did we get here?”

“I don’t know,” Meghan says, but it doesn’t seem like much of an answer. Kacey doesn’t try to tease her about it again, just shakes her head and focuses back on the TV. This time, when Meghan picks up her feet, Kacey doesn’t push them away.

-

Gillian can’t remember ever being this nervous about seeing a girl. She especially can’t remember being this nervous about a girl that she’s slept with multiple times. She’s seen Meghan naked in a variety of extremely vulnerable positions, but when she sees Meghan waiting for her on the corner, in a v-neck that’s just deep enough for Gillian’s eyes to wander, she can feel her heart in her throat.

“Hey,” Meghan says, her eyes flicking from Gillian’s eyes to her mouth and then back up.

“Hey,” Gillian echoes.

“So,” Meghan says coyly, “where are you taking me?”

Gillian takes a deep breath. She holds out her hand, and when Meghan takes it, she exhales.

“You trust me?” she asks, and Meghan smiles, slowly, until she’s beaming at Gillian, like they’re any other two people people in the world. 

“Yeah,” Meghan says, threading their fingers together, “you know what? I do.”


End file.
